as we have reported, president obama and governor romney are both campaigning in ohio today. and with early voting an option in dozen of states this year many americans could cast their ballots before the presidential debates even begin. shannon bream is live in washington tonight. what's the thinking about who stands to gain from this early voting, shannon? >> well, shepard, the president dominated in early voting in 2000 2008. it wasn't even close. political experts like michael mcdonald who is a professor at george mason thinks it's going to be a whole lot closer this time around in 2012. >> republicans are more enthused than in 2008. so that's -- there will be motivation among republicans to vote. plus, we have a romney campaign that's investing in early voting much more so than the mccain campaign did in 2008. >> by the way, in the last presidential election, some 400,000 early mail-in ballots were thrown out. mostly for is he simple mistakes things like postage and forgetting to sign it mail-in ballots do tend to skew more toward g.o.p. voters. shep? >> shepard: first d